BAMBOO SHOOTSWorks of fiction and poetry by friends of Bamboo Ridge Press.

I am born. . . . If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Well, OK, maybe not the official Peace Dove with the olive branch. Of
course not. And not Dove soap, ha ha. But none of this pigeons in the
grass, alas, guano. Huh-uh. Pigeons in the grass can bite Rudy’s
okole.

So he’s standing there like Mr. Clean, arms crossed, proprietarily
admiring his ironwood tree, when he thinks he detects movement at the
bottom of his stairway.

Coo-coo kachoo, there IS movement: fucking doves. Two fucking doves.
Two doves fucking in that awkward, jerky, grabass way doves fuck,
right in his own front yard.

And now he really hates doves. He’s furious. Fucking doves. He’d like
to wring their twisty little necks. Sucking doves!

Rudy catches his breath. “Olive branch,” he thinks. “Peace out, bra.”
He grins, claps his hands hard, makes them sting like rifle shots,
like shotgun blasts. Feathers fluster, flutter, and fly. But not far.
Definitely not away. Like recalcitrants, like people. Like doves.

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FEATURED ISSUE

What We Must RememberISBN: 978-0-910043-97-7New book of linked poems by the award-winning authors of NO CHOICE BUT TO FOLLOW (BR #96), Christy Passion, Ann Inoshita, Juliet S. Kono, and Jean Yamasaki Toyama.
WHAT WE MUST REMEMBER features 28 linked poems, followed by insightful commentary on each poem by its author. With an introduction and timeline of events by Massie scholar John P. Rosa, this special issue revisits the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Native Hawaiian prize fighter Joseph Kahahawai and the events surrounding it, commonly known as “The Massie Case.”
Referred to as “one of the greatest criminal cases of modern times” by the Chicago Tribune, the incident was reflective of the racial tensions in plantation-era Hawai‘i and, according to scholar David Stannard in his book HONOR KILLING, “provided the seedbed for subsequent [social] change” in the local community. In this new book, each poet investigates, interrogates, and brings to light the racial, ethical, and moral complexities of one of Hawaii’s most controversial criminal cases, the linked verses interwoven with factual detail to create a mosaic of emotional depth that explores the implications of the historical events that took place and that continue to reverberate today.